


The Stars At Night

by olddarkmachine



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Kissing, ODM Thank You Prompts, Prompt Fill, Stargazing, you asked for fluff and you got fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 12:34:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olddarkmachine/pseuds/olddarkmachine
Summary: “Are ya mad, Luce?” He asked suddenly, coal dark eyes flashing back to her quickly, sparking as they reflected the starlight. The movement caused the shadows to shift, leaving his face open and vulnerable as he looked up through his lashes. His look was filled with nothing but apology, which sent a muted shock twisting low in her gut.“No, Natsu,” she said slowly when just enough air returned to her lungs for her to push the words from behind her teeth. “I’m not mad.”It wasn’t a lie. Lucy couldn’t ever find it within herself to be truly mad, no matter how close to death they ever seemed to get. Worried, certainly. Scared? Of course.But angry? Never. Because one of her greatest secrets that she held close to her chest was that, up until she’d met Natsu and Happy and joined their team, she had truly felt alive.How could she ever be angry about that?





	The Stars At Night

**Author's Note:**

> ~~are big and bright *clap clap clap clap*~~
> 
> For my dear anon that asked for Nalu cuddles and kisses. I hope you like it and don't mind that I added stargazing since that's just a thing I'm like a huge fan of right now XD
> 
> Hopefully I did the prompt and Natsu and Lucy justice!

Lucy always loved the night sky. Even before becoming a celestial mage, or gathering any spirit keys, they had always provided her a kind of solace that nothing else had. Sparkling up there, light amongst a never ending blackness, she let herself believe that those stars would always be there for her.

It had become somewhat of a habit for her. To step outside each night and look up at the sky to trace the lines that connected the stars into their constellations. There, she could lose herself and her thoughts to the swirling, twinkling pricks of light that had been there far before she’d come around, and would be there long after she was gone.

Somehow, the thought of her own humanity and the greatness of the universe was comforting. It was something she could always turn to when she needed it.

And right now, she needed it.

The job was supposed to be easy, but they always were when Natsu and Happy were involved. After years of being a part of their team, she probably should have known that  _It’ll be easy, Luce_ , really meant that at some point someone was going to be running for their lives.

That someone, being her.

Sighing deeply, she pulled her knees up towards her chest and wrapped her arms across her shins as she continued to stare out over the cliff ledge just a short walk from their camp. Natsu and Happy had both disappeared some time ago, throwing hurried explanations over their shoulders as they’d run excitedly into the forest.

Something about a competition and fish, though whether the fish had anything to do with the competition, she wasn’t quite sure.

It was so like them to treat the events of the day as if they didn’t happen. As if Natsu hadn’t once again thrown himself between her and an attack that would inevitably run another scar along his skin.

_How many had he earned now protecting her?_

Heaving another low breath, she curled in tighter around herself as she rested her chin atop her knees as her eyes traced the stars with reckless abandon. Each glowing speck burnt against her vision as she tracked them against the endless sky.

It wasn’t until she heard the sharp snap of a twig behind her that she realized the constellation she’d been connecting came together in the shape of a dragon.

“Lucy?” A voice she’d grown all to accustomed with called from behind her. Swallowing down the jolt of familiarity that rocked across her sternum, she tilted her head just enough to the side for Natsu to see her acknowledgement. His steps were careful as he made his way over, nothing more than a soft brush of his sandals against the dewy grass.

Heat rolled gently off his skin in peaceful waves as he dropped down beside her. That was another thing she had grown painfully accustomed to. The warmth that always spread through her limbs whenever the dragon slayer was around. It also eased her troubles, pushing her loud thoughts beneath a quiet that was soft and warm until all she could focus on was the intensity of the dragon trapped within his chest.

Which, in turn, almost always left her with thoughts that screamed louder than before.

“Hey Natsu,” she breathed, his name ghosting over her skin with the same caress that wrapped it in undeniable softness. Turning her head to rest her cheek against her knees, she let her gaze find his sitting form where he sat with easy openness looking up at the sky.

“Who won?” She asked after a moment of contemplation and watching the way his mouth turned quirked slightly at its edge as he saw something painted within the stars.

The question earned a bright laugh  as he looked over towards her.

“Happy did, but I gave him a head start,” he said conspiratorially, throwing a glance over his shoulder back towards the trees as if the exceed could hear him. The light of the moon above cast a shadow across the sharp line of his nose and over his cheekbones, chasing away his boyish looks and leaving him looking every bit the strong fighter that he was.

For just a moment, she lost herself to the darkness that accented his jaw.

“Are ya mad, Luce?” He asked suddenly, coal dark eyes flashing back to her quickly, sparking as they reflected the starlight. The movement caused the shadows to shift, leaving his face open and vulnerable as he looked up through his lashes. His look was filled with nothing but apology, which sent a muted shock twisting low in her gut.

“No, Natsu,” she said slowly when just enough air returned to her lungs for her to push the words from behind her teeth. “I’m not mad.”

It wasn’t a lie. Lucy couldn’t ever find it within herself to be truly mad, no matter how close to death they ever seemed to get. Worried, certainly. Scared? Of course.

But angry? Never. Because one of her greatest secrets that she held close to her chest was that, up until she’d met Natsu and Happy and joined their team, she had truly felt alive.

_How could she ever be angry about that?_

“But you’re stargazing,” he said slowly as if he was working through the same thought. Eyebrow quirking, Natsu continued as he answered the question echoed in her look.

“You usually stargaze when you have a lot on your mind,” he paused as he looked away before he continued with a shrug. “And you usually have a lot on your mind when you’re mad.”

The statement was so blunt and uncharacteristically timid as if he was revealing a secret about himself buried beneath each and every word. Deep within her chest, Lucy felt something begin to glow and expand with feathered edges that tickled the inside of her skin with its warmth.

It wasn’t until moments later that she realized the edges of her mouth had turned up into a soft smile.

“Not always,” she said matter-of-factly, raising her arm out towards the sky stretched out before them as she kept her gaze on the dragon slayer. He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t right. She did have a lot on her mind, but from the way his brow furrowed with a foreign emotion she later placed as worry, he didn’t need to know that.

“Sometimes it’s just nice to take it all in.”

Watching him carefully as his attentions turned to where she pointed, Lucy saw the minute change in his expression as it relaxed. It was such a small change that she wasn’t sure many people would have caught. Just the simple easing of the corner of his eyes, and the gentle loosening of his squared jaw.

His eyes wandered across the inky darkness that melted into deep blues and purples, and punctuated by bright pricks of light as a quiet fell across their shoulders like a blanket. It was comfortable, and it felt safe.

It felt like it always had with Natsu.

“Do you want to join me?” She asked suddenly, the invitation surprising the both of them as his head snapped back in her direction. Electric currents sparkled and cracked beneath them as he contemplated the request before a wide, pointed smile split his features in two.

“Yeah,” Natsu’s voice was low as if he was scared it’d break the fragile stretch of time that had frozen around them. “I think I’d like that, Luce.”

Ignoring the heat that flared across her cheeks, she nodded as she shifted over until their arms brushed together in a single flash of lightning that stole her breath.

“You okay?” He asked after her pause stretched too long, the original worry coloring his voice a soft shade as he looked down at her.

“I’m fine,” she finally managed as she settled in next to him. If he noticed the way the space between them was fizzling, he didn’t let on as he turned back to face the view. With a steadying breath, Lucy raised her hand once more, her index finger pointed to trace the stars.

“This one,” she started, dragging imagined lines between points, the soft ebb of happiness brushing against her chest as she spoke. “Is Cancer.”

“No way, that’s what the crazy crab looks like up there?” Natsu breathed as he leant forward, his curiosity barely contained as he followed her finger connecting the dots. It pulled a breathy laugh from within her that rocked her shoulders.

“Yep! And this one—” she moved her hand to begun tracing another cluster— “is Leo.”

That one earned a boastful laugh as he brought up his own finger to follow the lines.

“I can’t wait to tell Loke I know which one he is.” Natsu paused with his finger hovering over the bottom of the constellation. Right over Regulus. Inside her chest, Lucy’s heart stuttered as she watched the way he gave the brighter point additional notice.

Regulus had always been one of her favorite stars.

Shifting again, her arm brushed against Natsu’s once more as she began to trace another. She hardly even needed to look at this one. This one had always been her favorite.

“And Aquarius,” she said, taking extra care to get the sharp lines right. At the corner of her eye, she saw the serious way his eyebrows had set as he took it in with a nod before the look melted away into something more devious.

Without preamble, he closed his fingers around her wrist. The sudden contact sent her pulse ricocheting against the halo of his grasp as he began to connect several different stars.

“Natsu?” Lucy said, turning his name into a question as she tried to make sense of the lines he was creating.

“I’m going to make my own constellation,” he said simply with a shrug that curved the line he’d been making with her point.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” she laughed as she tried to swallow down her heart that threatened to spill out over her tongue as his fingers tightened slightly against her wrist as he dragged it in a sharp turn.

“Who says?” Natsu asked defiantly before he stopped abruptly. Lucy wished she could have focused enough to mentally map the image he’d constructed, but all she could fixate on was the way her bloodstream had turned into a wildfire that culminated under his fingers.

“There, that one will be Happy,” he nodded before he began to trace again. This time, he pulled her arm across the sky to start at a point opposite where he’d just been. The move pulled her closer to him as she found herself suddenly flush with his chest. Each line and connected dot raced across her skin like a love letter to the sky as he painted an image across it that only he knew.

It took several more curves and sharp lines before he finally stopped.

“And here,” he kept his eyes forward as he spoke before he lowered their hands to the crest of his crossed leg and set her upturned wrist onto the ball of his knee. “Will be you.”

Silence fell over her once more as the fire storm pumping through her limbs consumed her whole at his self assured words. Nestled within his words in obvious disguise were things he’d always left unsaid. The things that had grounded her within their friendship, their team, and so much more.

There was a reason she had always felt so alive with Natsu, and he’d laid it there before her, wrapped within hushed toned and connected stars.

 _Are ya mad, Luce_ , he’d asked.

No. Far from it. She wasn’t burning within the unending thoughts of anger, but something else.

Something that left her heart exposed as it beat a hummingbird rhythm along the back of her ribs.

Something that felt a lot like love.

The gentle brush of Natsu’s thumb against the soft skin of her wrist pulled her back down from her thoughts as he kept his eyes turned toward the skies. It wasn’t until her lungs began to protest that she realized she’d stopped breathing altogether.

Turning her attention out over the landscape before them and the stars above, she timed her breaths with the strokes of his thumb until her pulse evened out and the firestorm abated.

An immeasurable amount of time opened around them as they lost themselves to the slow pattern that Natsu was following. Minutes, or hours, they were all the same as she breathed in and breathed out.

Then, Natsu spoke.

“Lucy?” He asked so quietly, she might not have heard if all other sound hadn’t already fallen away.

“Yeah?” She replied, turning her face up to look at him.

Anything else she might have said was swallowed down as he pressed forward, his lips closing the distance between hers in a soft, chaste kiss. Feather light and oh so fragile, the kiss sat between them as it it slowly sparked. One pop of heat. Another.

Another.

And then it was all consuming as Lucy pushed further into it, her lips slightly parting as she slid her hand from his. Swallowing the small gasp that tore from him, she dragged her fingers up along the line of his arm and across the strong bone of his collar before she pressed her palm against his heart.

It beat an erratic flow against her skin as she smiled, her lips turning up as she moved them against his.

Strong fingers twisted into the hair at the nape of her neck, anchoring her to him as he chased her breathy sounds with his tongue.

Everything about the kiss was soft and sweet with the underlying bite of something  _more_  that left her gut twisting in anticipation and burning want.

It wasn’t until pops of light began to color the backs of her eyelids that they pulled apart, their quiet gasps filling the night air as they looked at each other.

Pink colored Natsu’s cheeks as his black eyes sparked, their corners crinkling with the touch of a smile.

“We should stargaze more often,” he said, voice melting with a dark tone that stoked the fire at her core. Slowly untangling his fingers from her hair, he settled his hands down at his side and leant back against them as he turned his eyes back to the sky.

Dragging steadying breaths between her teeth, Lucy mirrored the pose as she let her fingertips brush across his in the grass.

Light filled the cavity of her chest with a fizzling brightness that threatened to carry her away as she flicked her gaze towards him.

“Yeah,” she said finally as her eyes traced the sharp lines of his profile. The simple word earned her a smile that stole all the light from the sky.

A beat passed as she admired the look before Natsu turned to her, the full crescent of his grin blinding her.

“So, Luce,” he said brightly. “What else is up there?”

******************


End file.
